November 2005
DRALION
Hello;
Thanks to John Goodwin I have seen Dralion twice. For all of you that do not know what I am talking about Dralion is the Chinese show of Cirque du Soleil. The dark legends said that Guy la Liberte went to chine and bought a whole circus and dressed it like a cirque du soleil show. The groups of Chinese that work in this show have to change for a new one because they are not allowed to be out of the country for more that two years.
The first time I saw Dralion was in Montreal. It was the opening night of a new group of Chinese into the show. I loved the set and I like very much many of the acrobatic numbers.
John, who finally I never met, gave me tickets for my family and me. It is fantastic to go to see the cirque in Bilbao because my relatives fell real proud. There are many people trying to see the show and they go invited. So everybody makes an effort to go well dress and is very happy to go.
I think the show is a little bit tired or at least in Bilbao it was. I enjoyed but because I was surrounded of people that I love and they were having a good time. But let me tell you guys, you have to teach those Chinese a little bit of performing. I know they are acrobats but they do not give a flying fuck about being on the stage. I know there are days and days but the day I went they were shit so the clowns were the best things in the show. And I am not going to start to talk about the clown numbers because this blog will never end.
John Goodwin and Linda wherever you are you made my day and thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Have fun.
FLOOR
Hello;
My eyes are not close. I am looking to the floor. Look, this one has lots of thin tables of wood; probably fake wood, that go parallel from one side of the room to the other side of the room. They are in a very good state so it looks that they have been placed recently. In the passed wooden floors used to be made always with very noble woods. In the house that I live It is pine. This one that I am steeping in now has been treated with wax and with colour paint to make her look like an old wood.
They have even painted the little imperfections that make her look really nice and fancy. And I bet anything that those little holes are fake made with drill. It makes the wood look like a thousand termites have been living in that wood for many months.
There is in the kitchen this stone look like floor. Let me see, yes, this is real stone, Blamey¡¡¡ I love that. They have covered the whole floor with square shape pieces of stone. I am sure it was not cheap. The stone is grey, but not, not really grey, it is more like clear black and it has crack of white that make the whole thing look less heavy that it really is.
And now this is a big mistake, to cover the entire floor of the rooms with carpet. It is not looking bad. I do not really like it, what I would have done is to leave the wood floor and then buy some nice rugs cover the floor with them. Like this you could also put a rug on top of the carpet but why? What would be the purpose?
And then the bathroom floor it really is very nice once again. You have gone for a similar style to the kitchen but in a clearer stone and you have put the heater underneath so in the winter the bathroom is always pleasant to go inn. I love the fact that the shape of the stones is smaller than the ones of the kitchen. I cannot wait to have a bath and then dry myself by lying in the heated floor.
Have fun.
THE HOUSING BOOM
Hello;
This is the cancer of the beginning of the century. Listen to what I am saying and listen very carefully. The prices that we pay for the houses are too high and the only thing that that is creating is that the whole shit economy is going mad.
There is going to be a moment when nobody is going to be able to buy houses and nobody is going to sell houses so the prices would have to go down and then the people that bought houses over price they would have to carry on paying big mortgages and the houses that they bought they would cost less that what they pay for them so…. The whole thing will be a disaster.
And then let me tell you about the mortgage for just interest only. They are very good because is the only way for many people to live in the house that they want, not to own the house that they live is by getting the stars of the creative economy, The interest Only Mortgage. I hate them. I come from a working class background and every poor person knows from very early on that if you borrow you will never make it. You have to borrow always less than you really need and then suffer saving all the time in order to be financially healthy and then…. This is the moment when I have to say that the whole thing is very scary. I just want to get a nice house in the country. And then when I will make more money start to repair it and then little by little start to live in it and make it as I like it. I have to find always a balance between what I want and what I can afford. It is my working class education that is coward and not adventurous.
Have fun.
LA TELE
Hello,
Well, I am here in Bilbao in my house. Well, not really in my house I am staying at my mother's in law home. The reason is that we are going to renovate the kitchen in our house and instead of moving there straight on from Las Vegas and open all the boxes and get ready to stay we spend the time that they are going to need to do the work and then move in.
To live in my mother's in law house in not ideal. She is great, very generous and very nice with us all the time but it is not our house and when you are use to live in your own house all the time it is not easy to live in someone else's house.
When I watch the TV I see people that I know for the time I was in school of theatre. They all are now working in the TV. It is not that I am complaining about my luck not at all but I envy them.
I see them and I think I could be one of them but taking on account the history of luck that I have had in this business if I will have stayed in my own country now I would be a theatre teacher. Thanks God I left and I am doing Spymonkey.
Many of them are doing a TV series about a very stupid bunch of policemen. A kind of TV series likes the series of movies about a school of police.
Another bunch work in the Spanish soap operas and then there is one that now is the king of Sit comes. Also I know many Spanish character actors that work from time to time in TV to pay the bills but what they really want to do is movies so they do not stay very long on the TV.
Anyway perhaps one day it would be my time so … I could live in my own home and watch the TV programs that I want and perhaps I will work in one of these TV series. Who knows?
Have fun.
SOMARRIBA
Hello;
We have had an invitation to go and have lunch in a place, more specific in a restaurant known around here as the Regi. This restaurant is owner by the parents of the I do not know how many time winner of the Tour of France, the Giro in Italy, La Volta de España, the world Champion etc. She is a very good cyclist and as the entire good cyclist has one of those tragic stories that are very sad to tell but very nice to read. For me are the melodramas of our times.
But that is nothing to do with what I wanted to say to you. We have got invited by my parents to lunch with them. It is a restaurant that we like a lot for many reasons.
They have a very nice menu for 52 Euros. You eat very well and also the wine is included. Also you have to reserve because if not you are not going to be able to eat the same day.
They a have a menu where you can choose from four a five starters, five or six main courses and then they give you a full displayed of deserts. You get a little bit of each one of them to try them all.
When you get inn you always have to wait a little bit. I do not mind because I like to have an apperitive before my meals but I do understand that if you want to go and eat it is a little bit boring to have to wait. Also if you said at one hour you have to be ready for the time.
Anyway, the dining room in underneath the bar and it is very small and smoky. That is the biggest reason why I do not go more often. No, not the smoke, the fact that is very small places.
For me the wine and the starters that they give are the high lights of this place. The food is very good but some is considerably better that other so what I mean is that is a little bit irregular. I like thou, I like it very much I recommend you to go there if you are around.
Have fun.
PALESTINE
Hello;
I have heard that they are doing things to chance the whole problem in Palestine. I think that finally something is going to change so the good people from that place are going to be able to live. They have not been able to live properly since the creation of the Israeli state. So many people have been killed and so many people had to stop leaving there and have been spread all over the middle east.
When we played in Damascus four years ago we met some people from Gaza, Dina Al-Jamal. She came all the way from Jordan to see the show and we had a fantastic time with them and they told us many things about hard times when the army killed her father and they had to go to live away from their country. Since then they were living in Jordan.
Now the wall that has not allowing Palestinian to go back to their land of origin is being put down and then both villages can live together how it should be.
I know from my own experience that everybody is very radical but every day there are more people that think that the world is for everybody and everybody should live together in peace. I fell sorry for the Palestinians because they have been having a very hard time in the land where they belong in the same way that I fell sorry for the Israeli people until they got the land where they belong. Now they should not do the same thing that people did to them to the people that were living there. That is a mistake.
Have fun.
AFRICA
Hello,
We all should be attracted to Africa. And I know that it is a real fascist thing to say. Because who am I to tell anyone what to do and what to fell? And also when I have never been in Africa before.
But honestly who has not had a relationship with Africa ever? Who has not read a book where they talk really nice about Africa? Who has not seen a lion in a Zoo? And who has not seen a Tarzan movie ever? If after those little details you do not fell attracted to Africa then as far as I am concern you are senseless.
Africa is the last place in the world for real adventures and wanders. The whole continent has a fan of different cultures and religions that managed to live together. There are thousands of tribes and different languages and wild animals. Perhaps it is that I have read too many books and that I have seen so many movies.
There is this picture of the Shabanna in Africa where the wind is moving the tops of the long grass and the trees have an slow forward a backwards rhythm like the grass but in slow motion and then you see an animal, probably a female lion searching for his next victim.
It looks like I have seen too many shows about animal on TV and I have not.
The lion walks like the whole thing belongs to him and it does, eventually he will find his meal and after kill he will eat it… this is part of the attraction perhaps, life and dead all so close together in the same place. Here I have talked about animals but when I see the people living together in the ghettos of Johannesburg, Marrakech, or El Cairo the different between life and dead there are not very different than in the middle of the jungle.
My sister lives in Africa. She runs a home for women in Antananarivo (Madagascar). She faces all the time this problem and she is a hero. Happy Birthday Nerea.
Have fun.
RAIN
Hello;
One hundred and forty four thousand sixty nine hundred millions of drops are coming down in this precise moment. And I think that one hundred and forty four thousand sixty nice hundred millions are the ones I can see through the window of my house. I fell like if they all are coming on top of me at the same time and that is why I am sinking in the sofa. But not I should not worried because I am dry and the ceiling is still on top of my head and I can not see any patches of water in it or even a small lick.
Perhaps it surprises me so much because in Las Vegas did not use to rain so much. It used to rain but just a couple of days a year so if that day you where inside and you did not notice then you may have thought that it never rained. Bu now I am not in Las Vegas and I ma waiting to go on tour so I have all the time of my life and I have stopped to contemplate the rain.
It is amazing it is like if someone is really hungry and it is paying or getting ready of his/her hunger on the people and thing that are in the earth by pouring over then all these trillions of drops. I do not know if he knows but the rain is very good for the cycle of life.
Also there is something magic about it. The rain now is coming down very straight hitting the floor really hard. Sometimes the wind is strong enough so it does not allowed her, is female for me the rain, to go down straight and then is like she would be very hungry wets everything even if you are underneath and an umbrella. You move the umbrella trying to find out where the rain is coming from and suddenly there is now rain where the umbrella was before and it carries on like that until your umbrella goes back wards and you can not close it anymore because is broken so you go home wet.
It has stopped now and the sun is starting to make the sky look blue. Everything on the street is shining from the rain. Now everything is magic.
Have fun.
HARRY POTTER
Hello;
I have just finished the latest Harry Potter Book. It is the sixth one and this time the book does not really finish because you can see in difference to the other books that story, the big story of the seven books it is about to finish.
I am not going to say the title of the book but I have to say that I red it like if I was 13 years and I was a big fun. It made me a little bit upset at times when I could fell I was getting a sweet to make me fell completely hook. I think in TV they are called hungers and that made me a little bit upset but on the other hand it has filled all the beginning of my holydays. I woke up and even before I will go to breakfast I had already red the book for half an hour at least.
Harry is become a young boy and Is having an affair with a girl, should I say who she is? Yes, because everybody knows by now is the young daughter of the Wesley. He fancied somebody else before but them they broke up and this two got together really sweet.
Now the exercise for all the fun of Harry Potter in the world is to guess what is going to happen in the next one and if really is going to be the last one.
I am going to make my guess, I think Harry is going to win the world against you know who and that he is going to finish the school and be the Aureo or whatever is called that he wants to be. I think the guys Germeynn and George the y are going to get together, it should have been in this book but I do not know why it did not happen.
I cried at the end. I know it is sad but I did and I enjoyed very much. I like those stories. The worst part of the third part of the Lord of the rings is that it was the last one and there were not going to be another one.
Have fun.
KATHY & MIREN
Hello,
Things happens in a very estrange, very estrange way. You spend your life looking for things. You want to find a nice job. You save money to buy a flat or you do not go on holydays so you can buy a new car or you drink your last bottle of wine so at least you get drunk once more because later you are not going to be able to spend any money in wine for a while.
Spymonkey did not get a grant when they need it and then they got offer to go to work for Cirque du Soleil in a show that was going to happen in Las Vegas as far as I am concern that was a very good thing that happened to us and also very estrange.
How can I know what is the right thing to do? I always think that what it happens it the best possible thing that could happen. Yes, I know that it is too optimistic but I do not know then how to deal with all the things that happen around me all the estrange things.
Now Kathy Bourne our manager may be doing other things and my wife Miren was going to come with me on tour and now she has got a job with a big parmatheutical company and she is going to be here. I am going to miss her and I am having troubles thinking that this is the best possible thing that could happen.
It is a fine time with many things about to happen and the way we deal with them it is always different. It is as different as each one of us that are living our lives together.
But STOP thinking about it, I am very happy for Miren and I am very happy for Kathy I wish them the best and I will support them as much as I can and hopefully it will pay off in the future.
Have fun.
FRANCO
Hello,
It has already passed quite a while since this man left us all from this lovely country. Yes, because for the rest of the world the fact that he died did not matter at all. If anything the rest of the world had to pay a little bit more money every time they decided to come to spend their free time over here.
Franco was our dictator and the direct responsible for the murder of have of the Spanish population of his time. Let me tell you something, the Nazis killed almost 20 millions of Jews in the time they had the power that they got in a democratic elections. Our dictator killed double that figure, because is impossible to count the amount of people that got killed during 50 years that he was in the government. And he took the government in an unlawful manner.
There is an international responsibility for all the crimes that he committed. No one of the big a fair counties of the occidental world that could have done something about it did anything. Many of the leader counties of the world ended helping him at one moment or the other. They would say now that it was the right thing to do because he was going to stop the communism. He stopped the communism yes and also the lives of millions of people in the beautiful country that he used as his own home.
Today is the anniversary of his dead or of his birth or of his whatever and I am still upset and hungry with the whole figure and the people that supported him. It was like if for fifty years someone is going into your car that you bought with your own money and he steals it from you everyday and night. It is your car that you bought legally and so but he says not and he is stronger than you and nobody does anything to stop him. Many people did a lot to stop him and they gave their lives, people from all over the world who believe in justice and freedom. The important ones stayed at home waiting …
Lets not forget that he did something illegal.
Have fun.
MY MOTHER IN LAW
Hello;
Here I am at my mothers in law house. Our kitchen is being renovated as we speak and we do not have a place to live while things get done. My mother in law offered her house for us while things get done.
She is a fantastic woman. After living with her for now sometime she surprise me all the time. She wakes up everyday at the same time, 8 o'clock in the morning and goes to bed at the same time, at 12 o'clock. From the very first moment that she is up she does not stop doing things. Sometimes when I see her doing things I wander if she does it because she has to or is a kind of work out for her.
She goes to buy bread everyday and she lives in a third floor flat with no lift. She cooks everyday and she does things everyday. I look at myself and I do not think there is one thing that I do everyday.
She cooks fantastically well thou she says that she does not like it but because she has been a housewife all her life now carries doing it.
Of course sometimes really irritates me because I am in her house and there she is the one that call the shoots.
For example on Tuesdays the person that cleans the house comes. And as far as he is concern she has to come at 8 o'clock in the morning so no matter what has happened the night before you have to be up by that time.
I suppose there is not other way of riding your house. You have to be very strict with your self and very dedicated. She is very nice and very funny. It make me laugh the way she said things that are a little bit old and she tells them knowing that they are but now there is not time to change and in that situation she appeals to the pass and how to argue with History?
Have fun.
FUTURE
Hello;
I have been leaving many years now. I arrive to that conclusion yesterday. I was trying to rearrange the delivery of a bankcard to my house and the lady on the phone asked me as one of the random questions “how old would you be next year? 37 I answered. Suddenly my brain runs through all my life in a split second. I did not fell old I felt tired and I felt uncertain about the future because when you arrive to my age you fell uncertain about the future. It comes with the age.
And the thing that makes my future uncertain is the lack of money or betters the lack of certainty that money will come inn. Manuel Vazquez Montalban a very good Catalan writer says through one of his characters “to have enough money so someone will clean your ass when you could not do it by yourself anymore” and I share his fears. I am sure I will have to work and I do not want to work when I am old, not for money at least. In any case it is normal to think like that because the more old you are the more difficult is to live.
So, what do we have left? Nothing much. The older you get the more appeals to me the Old rock and roll said “ Sex, drugs and rock and roll” or “live fast and die fast” and then you will probably will not died. This society even protects us from the people that want to kill themselves. I wander if it is to save money in funerals.
Have fun.
I ALMOST FORGOT
Hello,
Since I arrived from Calgary I have thought of writing a blog about the great people of Calgary. I am not talking about everybody in Calgary because I do not know everybody and I am sure that like everywhere else in the world there is nice people and there is very nasty people. But is true believing me.
Let me tell you about Steven Shredder and his girlfriend Kerstin, the first time I got to spend quality time with them was one day having dinner in a classic stake house of Calgary. I had a great time with them eating a drinking while surrounded by lots of “oil men”. The whole place was full of testosterone and there we were like an oasis of sensitivity in the middle of that restaurant.
Then the Rabbits, Blake, Michael and Dennis and Andy that are the most generous people in the world and the best people to have fun with.
I do not know how is really rabbit and who is attached to the rabbit world but with us they all are great. Michael gave us the best thanks given day, Dennis did her great solo show, Blake feed us when everything was difficult and to have dinner with him gave us power to carry on working non stop. And then Andy shaking our hands all the time like Long John Silver in the tavern of Jim wanting to find people to go and find the treasure in “Treasure island” the show that was preparing for the big theatre.
And then there is Johnny, Crish, Daina, and all the people in the office that gave us all the hard work and enthusiasm.
I almost forgot Ian and his sidekick, CHIP our technician. The thing is that I do not remember his name now but we went together to see a great gig of the Bellrays. Thanks again to all of you guys we will see each other's soon.
Have fun.
JET LAG
Hello,
Let me see, what is the time? Oh¡¡¡ for God shake¡¡ is 4 o'clock¡¡ I have come on holydays to try to rest and I am going to be waking up at this time everyday for a week? Then I will better start to work somewhere because if not my time is going to be waste.
What? Wait a minute; I am not going to be working. What I am talking about? I do not like working. I probably have spent too long in the north of Europe and now my brain has been contaminated by the use your time policy and I have to get “clean”.
But if I am not going to be able even to sleep how can I become myself again?
It is really dark outside and today there are not even people on the streets going back home after a good party. Wait there is someone there, but he is sweeping the street. The poor guy is working. Would I like to be doing that? No way, I fell sorry for him. I do not mind to be working till four o'clock but I would not like to start to work at this time. Probably I have spent many years working in the second half of the day so now this seems really weird. Last time I was awake at this time I was not sober and my brain was getting really num by the warms of the evil drugs. I was guilty of using them and I pay the price next day. Thank God I did not drink too much so I could get better with just one day.
What am I going to do so early and up? Yes, I know I can write the blog but I am not going to be able to be writing about things that are going to happen next day or next week. I could do it but as you know by now I get bored really easy so I will not be able to do that.
I could have breakfast and read my papers. Oh¡¡ NO¡¡ the shop is close and I am not going to be able to buy the paper. Well the only thing I can do is to wait, wait forever, wait and wait until my jet lag disappeared. I know it will take time so let get hold of some more patience and wait and wait.
Have fun.
TATE MODERN
Hello;
Guess what? Well, we have arrived to London and it is raining and grey. That was easy but the other easy thing to guess is that we had to leave things at the storage space and we do not have the keys. As some people will say is “spymonkey on tour”. From Gatwick airport Petra, Roger and Angela had gone in a big taxi straight on to the storage space and Toby left for Brighton.
I had to do some things and it has been quite nice to walk around London, something that I had not done for a very long time. When I walk through London everything is familiar. Everything has change a lot but there are place that I had been there before and immediately there is a memory in my head. I walked through Sloan Square. I went to the Spanish embassy and I realise that I had been there before many more times that I remembered. I tried once to get out of my military service, my obligatory military service. I saw the Royal Court. I love that place but I do not think I am never going to play there.
I went to the Tate Modern. I had been here before, once. The building is very nice and what they have done with all the surroundings is the most amazing thing. The river with St. Paul's cathedral and the Norman Foster breach make an amazing combination of different styles and things. There is a lovely garden with small and young trees that break the super industrial look of the whole place.
I am making time in the Tate Café while I get ready to meet Paul. I like this place is very clean and big and the fact that the walls are made of glass made you fell like if you are in the middle of the street.
Have fun.
GEORGE BUSH
Hello;
No, of course not I am not going to waste my time by talking about one of them once again It would be very boring. Sometimes they know how bore we are with them that is all part of a very big plan so we just do not bother anymore. Well, It is not working because we are never going to stop until you stop doing what you do and we managed to convince all the people that voted for them not to do it again.
But that is not what I wanted to talk to day. I am in Texas; I am in Huston in our way back to England. We landed here at 12 o'clock and we are very tired because we have to be at airport in Calgary at 5 in the morning.
This is state honours so much the Bush family that if they find out that I am writing things in my computer about their lovely family they may shoot me. Then once I am dead the airport that we are would change name and it would be called the Aitor Basauri International Airport and not like is called now, the George Bush International Airport.
I have very vague memories of the time we spent here now some years ago. We definitely had a very good time but I also remember being a little bit scared because the degree of freedom that we have in Europe and the one they have here is very different. So I always thought that we were going to do something very innocent in Europe and the police were going to come after us because we were doing something very illegal.
Now I am here again and I do not want to leave the airport and see anything. I saw some of the landscape from the plane and is very green and nice so I am curious.
So that is the whole thing, we have Bushes for quite a while and I do not think they are going to leave real soon. Let's called them with another name from now on. I suggest that every time we ready o hear Bush let say pooh. It sounds very similar but it is sweeter and funnier. I am sure Winnie will not mind.
Have fun.
EXPLORING
Hello,
The leaves are in the floor that means the autumn is kicking and the winter is about to hit this cold place but by that time we will not be here.
The Spymonkey are in their apartments in downtown and they can see how in the mornings the sky tells the winter is coming. They have a very good central heating so they do not have to worry. Stephan and me here it seems more primitive but we are not cold it is just that in order to heat the top floor of the building the heat in the house has to be very high. So imagine you come from the street with four layers of cloth and once you are inside the house you have to put yourself in your pants and t-shirt.
We are about to leave this place and I am already missing. And I am sure that is going to happen to me with the entire place that we are going to go this year. Emotionally going on this kind of tour is a real bitch. You fall in love with places and people and then you never know when are you going to see them again.
Perhaps it is just I and the way I accommodate myself in the places that we go in order to be happy. It is difficult to be indifferent to whatever is around you. Here “the ship and anchor”, the River Café, seventh avenue, the espressos from the coffee place in the theatre, the visits to HMV to get the latest DVDs; I am going to miss all of those things.
My world gets build every time I go to a new place and spend there enough time to go exploring and have time to get to know my new discovery that probably remains me of home. That is where I fell happy and comfortable.
Have fun.
LUCY BRADRIGE
Hello;
Lucy is our set designer, props designer, costume designer and a very valuable member of the spymonkey gang.
She comes with us on tour, she works really hard and we do not pay her enough money for all the work that she does all the time.
She has a degree in English Literature by a university of England and also a master's degree in Set Designing by the central School of Speech and Drama. So, what I am trying to say is that she is very clever and very talented.
But she is not just a clever girl she has also a pretty face, a very fit body and beautiful pair of legs and he smile is the sweetest thing you have even seen on the face of a girl. She is charming and talented.
She has done many TV series and many plays, mainly with Cal. She knows how to party. We went yesterday for drink to a club and there was a big cue outside and we try to get inn but they did not lend us. We did even use the Cirque du Soleil I.D. and still at the door. I decided to leave; I hate cues and more if they are for going into a club. But there she was having outside of the club as much fun as she would be having inside the club.
So all of you that have just read this blog call her. She is great, she is very funny and wonderful and perhaps she is for you or you are for her. But if you are with her take care of her and love her a lot. She deserves it because like Petra says is the happiest person in the world with many reasons.
Have fun.
REMEMBRANCE
Hello Everybody;
I was coming to the theatre this morning and saw at the end of the road a police car was crossing the road with his lights on. I walk all the way down because it was in my direction but also because I was really curious. When I made it there everybody seemed to be having a very civilised demonstration.
I saw the picks of some flags, I saw the tops of military hats, and I heard music, sad military music. Everybody were wearing the red poppy in their jackets. So I understood it is Remembrance Day. The day that people from all over the world remember the ones that died for the peace and justice in the world. Yes, I know that there is many other things people went looking for when the wars started but that would be another blog. Today I want to say that there are very few people that remember. I am the first one to have a horrible memory but that is not the point the point is to be fair with human race and with ourselves lets never forget that people try to kill lots of people and some humans decided that they were going to risk their lives to stop that. Some of them where successful and others failed and they were not there today but the ones were there were really proud and generous thinking in how like they were and how many of them never came back. While I write my eyes get watery and I hope everybody in the world exercise their memory much more.
Have fun.
SOLD OUT
Hello;
What is that noise? Oh¡, I see, they are moving the auditorium back so more people can come and se the show. The structure makes a horrible noise. Today is Friday and as it happens yesterday some famous people in Calgary came to see the show. They did like it a lot and because they work in Radio and in TV they have been talking about the show in their programs and the phone has not stop ringing.
It is a brilliant thing to have the house completely sold out. First it means that the audience likes you're work and second and not less important it means that business are going well.
I am ready to work and because for the last two years we have been playing to very big houses it is really nice to have something that would make the whole thing be a little bit closer to what we are used to. Not, because it is better it is just because it is familiar and familiar from time to time make things easier and very pleasurable.
The show is going well. No, I am not writing while in the show. This thing, I am writing it a little bit later in the week and I am using my memory and my imagination so hopefully when you read it the whole thing would be more exciting. We have been playing for the whole week and things are starting getting paceee. When the show start to get its pace is when the show it is at its best. I do not think the show is at its best yet but lets go, come and see it and then you will be able to judge it for your self. But remember all the good shows deserved to be seen twice.
Have fun.
JOHNNY;
Hello;
I am going to tell you about our friend Johnny. I know he would be reading at on point because I know he follows.
First I am going to tell you a little bit about how did we met because a little bit of history helps a lot to understand how things are at present. We met in Calgary, at the EPCOR Centre the first time we went to the Rodeo Festival in January 2002. I do not recall the first moment exactly because I was amazed by the generosity of our friends, not yet friends, as soon as we arrived there and it was and it is very difficult to find out who was the most generous but I remember seeing a bold guy walking around all the time always satisfying our deepest and more singular desires.
He would gave us the sign to start the play, he would opened the Bar when everybody was gone, he would sent letters where no place was opened and we wanted to sent a letter, he would brought pizzas when we were hungry and no restaurant was open and the whole blog would get full with the amount of thing that he did for us.
This time we recognise him immediately, he still shave his head and his glasses has the same shape as his head. He is the ticket office manager and he is from Montreal but now I think he is form Calgary because he talk very nicely about the Calgary Flames and I know that there is a hockey team in Montreal too. He is not a traitor I think he has had a very good time in Calgary and he is paying back.
He was as helpful as before and more and he was very charming and we would love to have him whit us all the time. Johnny come with us please and I say thank you very much for everything and lets go to see another hockey match as soon as possible.
Have fun.
THE POWER OF CHINA
Hello;
Hi, I had this little thought about the power of corporation. When you work for big corporations you are very limited with the things that you can do. Graham was saying that he was working for the Olympic games in Athens (Greece)(sorry about this explanations guys but I am sure there are many Americans that think that Athens is in Alabama and it is but there is a much older Athens in Greece and that is the one I am talking about) and they were doing an slide show about life and there were a picture of a breast and a baby sucking. The big sponsor was the NBC and with the power of having 40 millions people viewers they say the picture must go. American audiences would not like to see that kind of pictures in the TV.
So I thought, there is going to be a time when every thing is going to change and perhaps another country would be very powerful and then, lets say for the porpoise of my argument that they love the image of a blowjob. So, imagine that this country is China and his 1000 millions viewers love the image of a blowjob. They have wallets in the shape of a mouth with pennies, posters for lipstick where the right colour is the one that make the pennies the colour of the lipstick, so a blowjob would be like for us a kiss.
I would love to see all this American conservative Taliban's seen in their television the Olympic games of 2024 in the city of New Orleans and the main sponsor is the Chinese TV channel and all the merchandise is blowjobs.
I hope to live long enough to see their faces and the blowjob merchandise.
Have fun.
CALGARY FLAMES
Hello;
Today is my first day at a hockey match. I have heard so much about it that I am sure the expectations are going to betray me.
As I am sitting at the stadium I look around me and the whole place is getting full of people in less than an hour. I have been told that 19.000 people would be here tonight. I am sitting at section 208, row 10, and sit 21. I am in between two couples of people that seem to come here every night that there is a match. They both talk about what is happening in the field like everything was very important and it is important. Before I came to see the match I realise how important hockey is for people in Calgary and in Canada. For example you are talking about whatever and then in the middle of the conversation someone mention Hockey suddenly the bodies change position, the tone of the voices in the conversation goes deeper and everybody change their relax expression of their faces for another where their eyebrows seemed to want to get together. It is really estrange.
I got hold of two beers and a bag of peanuts and thou I am not going to talk to any of the people sited next to me I am going to enjoy my food and I am going to enjoy my beers
The match has started and the players are going really fast over the ice ring. It is really amazing to see them how skill they are. Inmediately I think about taking lessons and learning how to ice skate. There is not goal jet but the people behind me are shouting very much and are getting a little bit of my nerves. I do not even know for sure which team do I suppose to support. Little by little I start to understand, I do not get the rules but I know that the flames go in red and the others in white. I know that they want to win because they lost yesterday in Vancouver that is where the other team comes from. Then everybody stands up and leave. I stay because I do not have anywhere to go. The people sitting on my right are getting really drunk. They had already had two beers and they are coming back with two more. They are getting drunk in the catatonic way because they do not say anything.
The game is starting again and my team has score and then the other too. My team scores again and then the others too and then everybody stand up again and leave. I am getting a little bit drunk myself and my right side neighbours are completely pissed too and now one stays and the other goes for the bears. They have not even take off their jackets. I am sure they are going to the pub after the game.
The games starts the again and my team scores and this time the other team does not score again. The people behind me demand another goal and like if they could hear them my team scores again and me with everybody else in the auditorium jumps up shouting goal. It has been really great. We have won and everybody leaves the stadium very happy. I have not seen my drunk neighbours again they probably have gone to the pub already.
Have fun.
CRUSH
Hello;
We have seen the movien Crush. I have to tell you that it is fantastic. I watched with Steve Schroeder and Stephan. We told him to come to the house and had a beer and then watch a movie. We tried to see the Brown Bonny but it did not work and thanks god because it looked really boring.
Crush is the story of people in LA people of different races and how do we all live together. And taking the words of one of the songs of Avenue Q, the Broadway musical “everybody is a a little bit racist, sometimes”.
I was saying to Petra and Roger that it is very real but not very realistic. This bunch of characters met in the city of Los Angeles. They all do very different things and it is possible, it happens to all of us, that you meet with people that do not have anything to do with you but the script make possible that all this characters by pure chance they meet in a very short period of time more than once. That fact makes the movie to be a fairy tale with an almost very nice ending.
I want to say to everybody, go and see it. I am going to say it many times because the scariest thing is that we are like the people in the movie and that is the real part of the movie.
The actors are fantastic. There are around ten actors; from Hollywood stars like Matt Dillon or Don Chedale to people that are not so well know Tandy Newton. She is gorgeous.
And then is LA that gets portrayed as the exciting city that I learn to love and to like. There are always many things happening in LA and she makes you fell that you are in the middle of where things happen. Also you can be by yourself at any moment.
I cried like a “Magdalena” and the other boys in the room kept very cool. I love the movie so go and see it.
Have fun.
OH, MY GOTH
Spymonkey pulls out all the stops with its hilarious but uneven Cooped.
(hey, friends this is review that we got here in Calgary. I think it is quite good because it really talk about the show with care and likes the work. Lets see what you think)
(oh¡¡, yes it has been written by a guy called Martin Morrow. He is a nice guy)
Shitting mechanical pheasants, bollocks-naked ballet dancing, vaginally projected ping-pong balls—no, there is nothing Spymonkey won't do for a laugh it its uproarious(if uneven) Cooped.
The madcap European troupe has clearly honed its comic talents in the fringe-festival milieu, where you ‘ve often got to be outrageous and ridiculous as possible to grab attention. For this expansion of their 2001 Edimburh Fringe hit, the gang and dorecto-co-creator Cal McCrystal have taken a cellophane thin spoof of gothic romances and stuffed it to bursting with sight gags, silly accents, daft dream sequences, inspired slap-stick and hilariously uncongruous musical numbers, to the point where it loses the shape of a genuine genre parody. Which is a bit of a shame, really, since this four gifted performers seem equally capable of witty character comedy as well as broad physical clowning.
The show has a Farndale-style framework: a writer with the deliciously Dickensian name of Forbes Murdston(Toby Park) has penned a homage to the gothic novella, to be performed by himself and the three others: an actress-benefactress(Petra Massey), a severe-looking German expresionist actor(Stephan Kreiss) and a puffed-up Spanihs soap opera star(Aitor Basauri). These thesps may no the rank amateurs like the Farndale ladies, but they're a bunch of egotists and hams all the same, and the benefactress certainly didn't splurge on their rickety décor and props, which would have been designed by Ed Wood JR.
The moth-eaten play-within-a-play is a loony riff on Rebecca, seemingly set in the swinging ‘60s, to judge from the wide-eyed herine(massey), a blond dolly-bird who bounces about in a turquoise mini-skirt and white go-go boots. She is Laura du Lay, a poor orphan cometo Birch End(nice S&M name, that), Murdston's ancestral English country manor, to serve as his private secretary. Her broodingly handsome and mysterious employer live alone, save for a wildly unpredictable German manservant (Kreiss) and the usual heap of skeletons in the cupboard.
Enter the family lawyer, Roger Parchment ( Basauri)-and if you had any doubt this was the ‘60s, Basauri's uncanny physical remeblance to Peter Seller will put an end to it. Like Sellers, he also plays multiple roles, popping up later as Scotland Yard inspector Judadench and wickedly mischievous bishop, as well as sporting an accent as ludicrous as Clouseau's.
“I must find ta Killa” the intrepid Judadench declares in his gazpacho-thik Spanglish. “You must find tequila?” asks and incredulous Klaus.
Basauri might purloin the show,if it weren't for Massey, a consummate physical comedian whose pretty Laura suffers from some not-so-pretty flatulence, as well as jittery conniption fits that render her stiff as a board, leaving Murdston and Parchment to struggle awkwardly with her body as if she were a life-size, vibrating Barbie doll.
The there's Kreiss's Klaus, the
MOUSE
Hello;
We are leaving at 515 20 th AVE south west. Here in Calgary this is known as the Mission district or neighbour hood. There are lots of small wooden houses that look really nice and now they are waiting for them to get destroyed and build lots of boring condos that every time I see one it remind me of the buildings of the Basque police. I do not like them.
Stephan and me share this apartment in one of these wood houses. It is a very nice house but I cannot see any future to it because just the land is very expensive and they are going to try to make as much money as possible with it.
At the beginning of our staying here we realise that there were some one else living with us in the house. We could here at nights how a small mouse will come out and will eat the food. We bought a couple of tramps, nothing very sophisticated the classic piece of wood with a spring that you put the cheese on one side and as soon as the mouse touch it the spring get loose and kill the bastard. The first one that died it was not a bastard. His head was squeeze against the metal bar, and the little needle at the end of the spring had nailed his head against the piece of wood.
We thought we were free. We celebrated with a nice bottle of Spanish wine and the next day we found out that once again we had company. This time we teased him with a little bit of Salami. Next day we looked and the salami was still there so we put a little bit of cheese on top. When we went for breakfast the cheese had disappeared and the salami was still there and nobody got kill.
That night I had a nightmare. I could see the mouse coming out of his house in his bathrobe with fancy slippers and the end of cigarette in his mouth. It would look around to see if everything was ready and dropped the cigarette on the floor.
The will get a small matches box and putting it close to the cheese on top the mousetrap he will start to eat like if he would be in a very expensive restaurant. Then I woke up and I could not sleep anymore because I could hear noises from the kitchen.
Have fun.
SHIP AND ANCHOR
Hello;
It is very cold and the sun is shining. For someone that is from Spain the statement I made before does not make much sense. If the sun is shining is should be warm and if it is really cold then the sun should not be shining. But lets leave this subject for a better time. All our friends of Zumanity have been so grateful to come here to Calgary to see our show and thou we could not go out at night we have decided to have a nice day together until they have to get the plain back to Las Vegas.
They are great. As I look at all of them sitting around the table at our local pub in Calgary I know exactly why did I fall in love with all of them on the first place. Joey is the best a fantastic human being, incredibly eccentric but full of generosity and human felling. Elliot and interesting person form which you never stop learning. So delicate and strong at the same time that it would always be a reference for what is good and what is bad.
Gyoula is probably the most talented of all of us and still young enough to be the greatest. Simple and courageous and ready to break her for her friends and let's not forget that she is so hot that I ma going to have a heart attack.
Mel she is fantastically talented and witty. She has very dry humour and a huge sensitivity. She is also very hot.
Jennifer is a very generous person with an amazing heart. She has put herself on the line to do masks for our show and then she has come to see the result. It is great to have her around once more.
Sebastian and Ann Marie have come with Cira, their lovely daughter. The three of them are real friends and thou some time had gone by it seems like it was yesterday the last time we had a barbecue together in Las Vegas.
It has been amazing to see them here and hopefully we will meet in more places around the world and we will keep in touch for the rest of our lives.
As we take pictures of all of us with the sun shining in the beers that we are having the pictures that appear in the camera have a magic aura that it is the strong friendship that link us together.
Sorry but I had to be sentimental with my great friends.
Have fun.
OUR FRIENDS
Hello;
My town, my car, my life … it is all about that. We are in this life to own more things all the time. At the end of the day we all are going to die and then everything that we own it would not belong to us but it would not matter either because we will not be nothing. Well, I do not think we will be anything so…
But let me tell you that you know you have friends when they come to visit you and the more they travel the better friends they are.
All our friends from Zumanity arrived yesterday to Calgary. It was so nice to see them. We all gather at Petra's apartment early in the afternoon. I had spent the night at Cal's place, because he left us the other day to be working for a big start at the MTV Europe awards. I had gone to see a concert of an amazing San Francisco band called the Bellrays and I had to crash at Cal's house.
In the morning after a very nice time having breakfast by myself I choose to go up to everybody's flat and we wait for a while until the whole lot was there.
Joey, Elliot, Gyula, Mell, Jen, Sebastian, Ann Marie and Quira were there and for just a second it felt like if we all were still together.
We had to go to work so they all went to lunch and we went to work. It was really nice to get ready to do a show knowing that your friends where going to be in the auditorium. They loved it and they said the show was very good. Of course they were going to say that it was good. They had travelled all the way from Vegas and the show had to be good, Looking at my friends while we were playing we had a special pleasure because they were there.
After the show we ere all very tired and we went to bed but we had lunch next day and we say good-bye.
I thought of all the people that we met in Las Vegas all the friends that we worked with for two long years and they were not there.
We promised to see each other's again soon. I am sceptical about it but I promise to try.
Have fun.
COLD
Hello,
I have taken the bed cover over my body and I had tried to open my eyes. It is not easy because yesterday I was out until late and everybody was in the mountains and I had the time for myself. I was watching TV for hours and when I wake up the first thing I did was to check the time. It was 12 o'clock and I look to the windows but I could not see what kind of day we were going to have. At first sight it looked like the sun was shining. I had learned by then that when in Calgary is sunny it does not mean like in Spain that it is going to be a warm day. The day was very sunny but very cold. I do not like cold, well I like champagne cold and the gin tonics and also when I am snowboarding I like the weather to be sunny and cold but if I have to be going around I like to be warm all the time.
After living in Seville and Las Vegas I definitely prefer the hot weather.
All the things that the cold weather brings are not my favourite. I do not say that from a scientific point of view because I have not studied the subject but I have lived in different places and I believe that there are many similarities those cold countries have as many as the similarities of the warm countries. In the cold people are less sociable and are more ready to have fun. The drink more carefully and they do not go mad as much as they go in the cold places.
I think that I am generalising here but this is just because I have not done a scientific study about it. People in warm countries are more open and less generous because they do know that they can find someone else to talk if thing go wrong. Do I have decided to leave my bed as late as possible so I keep myself really warm for as long as possible.
Have fun.
